on March 4, 2010 by Justin in Uncategorized, Comments (59)
Twitter Has Suspended TweetMiner (and now UN-suspended!)
TweetMiner has officially been UN-suspended by Twitter!
I have removed the “Follow All” Functionality which was the main issue. They have said that they will perform one final review of the site if there are any other issues they will let me know (hopefully before switching TM off). They havn’t said so, but I think the implication is they will allow the RSS stuff to remain.
To continue as usual simply login to TweetMiner and click the + sign if your accounts are missing. You will be re connected with your old accounts and you should not loose any data.
As always please email me at support@tweetminer.net if you have any problems.
—————
Twitter have suspended TweetMiner and revoked API access to TweetMiner without warning.
I think the reason this has happened is because of the new feature (custom signatures) that I introduced yesterday (about 18 hours ago). However, I haven’t been able to find anywhere in their TOS that discuses this. Of course, if they had sent me an email I would have removed the feature instantly and without question.
I am now doing everything I can to contact Twitter to try to resolve the issue (they’re not easy to get in touch with!).
All I can do is apologize profusely to the 3000+ registered users and promise that I will try to get this resolved as quickly as possible.
Update 16:41 PST – Thu 4th March 2010
I am currently persuing this process here:
http://help.twitter.com/entries/72585-api-developers-how-to-appeal-application-suspension
Update 16:59 PST – Thu 4th March 2010
I have just posted this email to twitter using the above process. I will keep you posted. As soon as I know, you will know!
Hi, At about 3:30PM PST Thur 4th March my app. TweetMiner was suspended from the Twitter API. Please can you contact me ASAP letting me know what to change in order to resume TweetMiner’s API access. I have 3000+ registered users who love and rely on the app and I’m more than happy to revoke any feature that you deem unacceptable. Please let me know what I need to do in order to get tweetminer back on line. Hoping to hear from you soon. Cheers,Justin Vincent :)
Update 18:15 PST – Thu 4th March 2010
I just noticed that my support request has an id of something like 89,123… Ah. Just another 79,999 to go before they get to mine then.
Update 07:48 PST – Fri 5th March 2010
Osha started the hashtag movement #FreeTheTweetMiner3000 – More info here: http://bit.ly/cecJNi
Update 08:06 PST – Fri 5th March 2010
I am going to remove the custom signature feature from TweetMiner, just in case that is the issue. Then at least if they review the site it will be in a state ready to be switched on instantly (If custom signatures is indeed the feature that got TweetMiner suspended)
Update 10:06 PST – Fri 5th March 2010
I have removed “”custom signature” functionality and all references to “custom signature” from the marketing material and help videos. I have managed to get TweetMiner up and running again to act as a “live” client. Please login to TweetMiner and click the + add account button to re-establish your accounts.
This may not be a permanent solution since I have simply registered a new application called “TweetMiner (Again)”. It is possible that Twitter will suspend it again – we shall have to wait and see. I’ve still heard no word from them as to why TweetMiner was suspended. I’m hoping that it was an automated suspension based on some kind of trip-switch activated by the “custom signature” feature, and in turn, I’m hoping that since that feature is no longer active that the new app “TweetMiner (Again)” will NOT be suspended.
Update 10:49 PST – Fri 5th March 2010
Twitter have suspend the account TweetMiner (Again). This indicates one of the two following possibilities…
a) It’s an automated system that will suspend any version of tweetminer without question
b) Twittter have some problem with TweetMiner and they continue to manually suspend it without warning
All I can do at this point is wait for some kind of response from thier help desk. If anyone knows any way to get a message to a real twitter employee please let me know by sending an email to support@tweetminer.net
Update 11:42 PST – Fri 5th March 2010
I’ve had a communication from twitter:
Thank you for writing in. Your application, TweetMiner, was suspended because it violates our Automation Rules (http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/76915) in regards to Automated Following by Keyword and Automated Unfollowing. Moreover it allows automated posting of RSS content by keyword, this too violates our automation rules as the content is not from the user’s personal blog. These features promote a way for users to violate the Twitter rules (http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311) in regards to Spam. As for branding, any web-based application is not allowed to offer a personal branding feature as the transmission and storage of those keys on the web provides a hijacking risk to your application should those keys be intercepted. Please make the required changes to your application so that it follows our Automation Rules and we will reconsider your application’s suspension. And if you need further information please do not hesitate to contact us.
Hmm.
As I’ve built out TweetMiner I’ve been very careful to ensure that no feature involves “automation”. Each feature has been built in such such a way that the user MUST make a manual, editorial, decision before ANY interaction with Twitter.
Friend Finder does NOT automate the follow process, all it does is help you find good people to follow via keywords. It then presents you wil a list of interesting people at whcih point you manaully make the decision to follow or not. There is no difference between this and searching for people using twitter search – other than it is slightly less painful with TweetMiner.
The TweetMiner RSS system does NOT automate RSS content being posted to Twitter. In fact there is absolutely NO difference between google reader and TweetMiner, both of which require a manual, editorial, decision before tweeting a story. There is also NO difference between tweetminer, hootsuite & cotweet with regard to using rss feeds and scheduling. Why is it ok for hootsuite & cotweet to offer the exact same functionality as TweetMiner, yet TweetMiner is suspended yet they are not?
As for the “branded tweet” custom signature functionality. I have already completely removed it from TweetMiner.
I have sent another message to twitter explaining the above and asking them to un-suspend TweetMiner. At this point I don’t hold very high hopes.
If Twitter reply that the basic features of Tweetminer are unacceptable to them… then I no longer have a business.
Under that circumstance It goes without saying that I will fully refund all 94 customers for any payment of service beyond the 3rd of march 2010.
I will keep you posted. As soon as I know what Twitter have decided I will let you know.
Update 11:42 PST – Fri 5th March 2010
I’ve had another communication from twitter:
.
Ok. I’m happy to remove the “Follow All/Unfollow All” option. That’s not a problem. But. There is no difference between hootsuite, cotweet and tweetminer when it comes to plugging in RSS feeds and giving people the functionality to schedule tweets.
If I remove those features then there is no reason for customers to pay and I don’t have a business. I’ve sent them a final follow up about this and am awaiting their decision
Matt Johnson
March 4, 2010 @ 7:20 pm
What about those of us that are paying for your service? I think refunds are in order. The signatures were your idea, not ours.
Imad
March 4, 2010 @ 8:03 pm
Justin: What a bummer! Let me know when you find out. I don’t know why the custom sig. would make a difference. I know you’re work hard to resolve it!
Thanks,
Justin
March 4, 2010 @ 8:08 pm
@Matt Johnson – Don’t mean to pass the buck but actually it was a number of customers who asked me for the feature… I build each feature according to chatting with customers and asking what feature they deem most important for me to release next :)
Ajay Goel
March 4, 2010 @ 8:12 pm
Wish you were warned before being suspended. How rude!!!
Justin
March 4, 2010 @ 8:19 pm
I guess it is possible that the new feature tripped some kind of automated lever suspension. Hopefully they will let me know soon…
tommytrc
March 4, 2010 @ 8:21 pm
Actually Matt there are other twitter tools that do the same exact thing as tweetminer, so I’m not sure what line was crossed.
TS Elliott
March 4, 2010 @ 8:37 pm
Justin,
I love tweetminer and it is the best twitter client out there today. I am your biggest fan. Twitter has made a mistake because there isn’t anything that this tool does that I haven’t seen with other software. I think that we need to start a hashtag and make some noise. Then maybe twitter will get back to you faster. Just let me know what I can do!!!
TS
Peter Zhang
March 4, 2010 @ 8:39 pm
Very sorry to hear about that.That’s the worst news I had for today. The first thing I do in the morning is Tweetminer. The service you provide is so valuable for us and specially for the leads generation service like we provide. I also been suspend account before but no where to give them a ticket. Maybe you can try to reach them at:http://twitter.com/about/contact. Otherwise maybe you have to come to their door. Really hard to reach them, they are growing to fast to provide the good customer service.
Hope you can get this problem fixed. Good luck to you. We really like your service!
Justin
March 4, 2010 @ 8:46 pm
@TS Elliott – What would the hashtag be? #TwitterPleaseBringBackTweetMiner ;)
KaliMarcum
March 4, 2010 @ 8:48 pm
This is very unfortunate. I have my own customers that depend on me to tweet their eBay auctions. I have set up hours of tweets for this week. Can I still get into my tweetminer account to retrieve them? I can’t believe I didn’t make my own copies of these tweets.
Justin
March 4, 2010 @ 8:55 pm
@KaliMarcum – I’ve opened up tweetminer again you can login and recover any tweets that you need to.
Mike Haydon
March 4, 2010 @ 9:00 pm
Damn that sucks! Hope they listen to you Justin and this can be resolved quickly.
DBear
March 4, 2010 @ 9:22 pm
TweetMiner is an excellent app and I think Twitter has made a big mistake suspending its use without first giving you a chance to rectify the situation. That policy doesn’t take into account the fact that an app has MANY users. My upset over this is with Twitter, and not with TweetMiner.
Osha Gray Davidson
March 4, 2010 @ 9:31 pm
Thanks for being so responsive, Justin. Tweetminer rocks. Every start-up has bumps in the road. It’s how they handle them that shows the kind of people (or person!) who’s running the show. I think you’re doing very well. I pay for Tweetminer, and it’s been well worth it so far.
I agree that we need a hashtag. #FreetheTweetMiner3000 #WeWantRTweetMiner #I♥TM
Other ideas?
Darcy
March 4, 2010 @ 9:36 pm
Welcome to the world of “free”!!
Facebook, Google Apps, Twitter… All of these free services are nothing short of the good’ol Far West. Grab what you can and then run! Expecting customer service is a waste of time! …and building a business on any of the “services” offered by these guys is like gambling in Vegas. Good luck!
Actually… It’s more like trying to run a business in an unstable country under dictatorship, right?
Anyways… Sorry to hear that. Good luck, Justin!
Christian Wilson
March 4, 2010 @ 9:43 pm
Osha gray great idea on #free the tweetminer 3000
get it going @manageyourtweet will follow and retweet it all clients are going to be bummed starting tomorrow
I also believe that is not a big mistake.
I am of the belief that this is twitters secret sauce they were planning on releasing a couple months from now they were going to sell the links you had started to give away or sell depending on how you look at it.
cant bite the hand that feeds us hard to take on the leader of the group but if it is possible to get reinstated I am looking forward to this!!! I have built my business around this and in my book this put 4 people out of work!
#twitter responsible for job lay offs this might be a good hash tag on the eve of the new unemployment numbers
Eyas
March 4, 2010 @ 10:13 pm
I’m not a registered user but I really do like TweetMiner. I’ve just heard about the suspending..I wish the service to return and I see that it’s not mr.Justin mistake at all.with respect to all.
Syl Wilson
March 4, 2010 @ 10:22 pm
Truly this is a sad day – I pray that they reinstate everything because I was planning on introducing your tools to all of my clients. This is the easiest software to use that provides the best data that I have ever seen. @mikehaydon introduced it to me and I can’t thank him enough. I think we all need to write Twitter and tell them how we feel. Good luck to you and please keep us informed. Just let ME know what I can do.
Faceman5050
March 4, 2010 @ 10:50 pm
Twitter goes thru alot of api changes and they dont notify app designers. So every twitter product goes thru these setback. I myself use 2 other twitter software and each experence diffrent issues so i can say this is to be expected untill twitter makes a offical app or program. I laugh at those users who want refunds because of something thats unexpected in a work in progress. These are the same people that pay $5 for coffie at starsmuchs or they pig out at all you can eat buffets and cry because there close dont fit. I say let the designer do his work, let twitter ketch up on complants and stop worrying about things that will work it self out. If you want a refund the money is spent so stop crying like a kid. To those that like this product hurray i do to. So having said that i too am waiting with everyone. To the refund seaking crybaby im sorry i singled you out please dont kill yourself its not the end of the world yet. When it is im shure you will cry refund to saint peter too.
Justin
March 4, 2010 @ 11:04 pm
Just want to say that although I appreciate the support from @Faceman5050 I don’t endorse the entire sentiment :)
I’m happy to refund if/when required to any tweetminer user. Hopefully it won’t come to that and we can get things up and running before refunds become an issue!
Whatever happens I will work out a way to make up lost subscription time for all TM users.
Osha Gray Davidson
March 4, 2010 @ 11:16 pm
Hi, Justin. Any preference on the hashtag? (Suggestions from others welcome, too.)
I plan on tweeting some sort of very brief message, then this url followed by the hashtag. Sound OK?
jonathan
March 5, 2010 @ 3:16 am
Kind of agree with faceman5050 -twitter is still having growing pains at the moment and $5 is not really a lot per month considering you get to use twitter almost like an email – twice per day to send & receive tweets.
Ironic that we spoke yesterday Justin about this issue right?
Anyways – maybe I shouldn’t say it too loudly but my tweet from tweetminer just worked – see
http://twitter.com/sharpendtrain
Tweet = test
Twitter Has Suspended TweetMiner | TweetMiner Blog | twittersoftware.org
March 5, 2010 @ 5:14 am
[...] Read the rest here: Twitter Has Suspended TweetMiner | TweetMiner Blog [...]
KaliMarcum
March 5, 2010 @ 6:56 am
OMG…what a night! I no sooner posted here and went to my email when AT&T crashed. It was beginning to feel like the World Wide Web had come to an end!!! Well, AT&T is back up but I see tweetminer is still suspended and it wasn’t all a bad dream. It just goes to show how things can go wrong no matter how big or small an entity is. It is not right to just suspend tweetminer without so much as a warning. I hope you can work this out.
Thank you, Justin, for opening back up the accounts for us to get in there and retrieve tweets.
Now about that hashtag??? It appears that there has been no real consensus on what to use.
Daniel
March 5, 2010 @ 6:58 am
I really hope you get this up and running again. I am keen to try it and really think its cool!
Milton
March 5, 2010 @ 7:04 am
Tweetminer is my life line to twitter. No one does what you do. Just to do the rss feeds is a goldmine wihtin itself. It’s going to get worked out!
Paul Clarke
March 5, 2010 @ 7:33 am
Guys,
It’s nice to see the majority of people being sympathetic. For those of you that want to jump on Justin at the first opportunity should sit back and chill.
In all the time that you have been sing thise terrific softwre, how many times have you had cause to complain? This is only a temporary measure no doubt and Justin has been open and honest but the issueis now with Twitter.
To Justin: Could the usspension have anything to do with the Follow Friend feature? As it makes it easy to add lots of people in a short period of time. Something that Twitter frowns upon.
Regards,
@Axleuk
Christian Wilson
March 5, 2010 @ 8:30 am
#freetweetminer3000 this is the hash tag to support lets free this app !!!!!!!!!!Justin Has done nothing wrong other than possibly let out there secret sauce please let him put the best app back to work!!!
Jason Cohen
March 5, 2010 @ 8:54 am
No refunds. You didn’t do anything wrong. Tweetminer is the best! Let us know if we can help.
Miguel Miranda de Mattos
March 5, 2010 @ 9:06 am
Weird…
I sign and agree with most of the comments in this thread.
TweetMiner is great tools, and what twitter is doing is not fair
Please keep us updated.
Thanks,
Mark A. Andrews
March 5, 2010 @ 9:07 am
It appears that scheduled tweets aren’t working, but instant tweets and all other features are.
Luigi
March 5, 2010 @ 9:16 am
I tried to post something and it went trough this morning… yay? :}
Mark A. Andrews
March 5, 2010 @ 9:54 am
Friend Finder may or may not be working. How do you tell when you don’t get any suggestions? :-)
Osha Gray Davidson
March 5, 2010 @ 10:05 am
I created & registered the hashtag: #FreeTheTweetMiner3000 (Christian — thanks for getting this started – the word “The” was left out of your tweets and I think it’s necessary to have it in. Otherwise it may be interpreted to mean that this is just an advert for something being given away.
I registered it at Tagalus, a hashtag registry that provides definitions of hashtags. Here’s what I wrote:
“TweetMiner is a superb new Twitter app with 3000+ diehard user/fans. On March 4 Twitter suspended TM w/o explanation. We users want our TweetMiner back. Justin, the owner, has said he’ll fix whatever caused the suspension. Please, Twitter, free TweetMiner”
http://tagal.us/tag/FreeTheTweetMiner3000
Of course, each person can use the hashtag however they want. Here’s my plan: Tweeting different short messages followed by a link to this page (using http://bit.ly/cecJNi) and the hashtag #FreeTheTweetMiner3000
I’m thinking of adding “Plz RT” to the end of most messages.
Please avoid flaming Twitter as that will likely piss them off and they’ll take it out on TweetMiner.
OK, synchronize watches…and GO!!!!
Justin
March 5, 2010 @ 10:26 am
@Osha That’s great :)
jonathan
March 5, 2010 @ 10:49 am
Luigi – Mine works also – but the scheduler doesn’t work. They seem to just stay in the queue unposted.
Looks like I am stuck with tweetdeck for a while :-(
AM
March 5, 2010 @ 12:32 pm
Hi Justin,
we look forwards in hearing from you that your API is up and runnng so that we can join. Best wishes
Afonso
Christian
March 5, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
I hate to even ask this question but is there any good options (IE APP’s) for handling multiple accounts
Mark A. Andrews
March 5, 2010 @ 12:51 pm
When you remove Custom Signature, how will it affect those of us who changed our accounts? Do we need to remove it from out Twitter accounts as well?
Jeremy Likness
March 5, 2010 @ 12:51 pm
I am a big fan as well and look forward to the resolution. I hardly ever make personal app purchases (most of my development needs are satisfied through my work machine) but TweetMiner really changed the game for me … not only made it very easy for me to organize and keep pace with information, but also added dozens of followers in a short timespan and gave me some great resources to follow myself. I couldn’t not show my appreciation by investing in the basic plan, and did that about 2 days before it went down. My only frustration is with Twitter for not having clear warning or a clear path to resolve … looking forward to this being restored because it really was a great workflow for me. Thanks for the transparency with your customers!
Justin
March 5, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
Christian – I’m hoping to have something online in the next 30 mins.
Justin
March 5, 2010 @ 2:00 pm
Suspended again I’m afraid. Sorry :(
RockCityGhost
March 5, 2010 @ 2:38 pm
Have you given any consideration to the fact that they might not like the schedule tweets feature? From what I’ve read, they want to stop auto tweets due to spammers and such. They want a “live” twitterverse.
Osha Gray Davidson
March 5, 2010 @ 2:45 pm
RockCityGhost — (Very cool name, BTW)
HootSuite has the same feature, doesn’t it? And they’re still up, so…?
RockCityGhost
March 5, 2010 @ 2:57 pm
@Osha – I couldn’t tell you about other applications, I haven’t used many of them. I started on TweetDeck and then moved here to TweetMiner. I don’t use the scheduled tweets portion either, it’s just some fuel on the fire as to why Twitter might close down TweetMiner.
Tyler
March 5, 2010 @ 3:37 pm
It doesn’t seem fair that that hootsuite and others are allowed to operate, while Tweetminer is suspended. Hopefully twitter will reconsider, as TM is a terrific tool.
Emrah
March 5, 2010 @ 4:07 pm
Even though the content is handpicked, it looks like they are considering it automation when the act of posting is done asynchronously by TweetMiner on behalf of the person with no need to login to do the posting.. Google Reader can’t schedule posts and do the posting on behalf of the user, right?
If HootSuite and others do the same though, they should be suspended too. It’s only fair.
Darcy
March 5, 2010 @ 4:11 pm
The other way of looking at it is… HootSuite’s days are counted! Who knows? And that is precisely the problem. Nobody knows. They send you to jail without even giving you a reason.
TweetMiner being suspended for whatever reason is one thing. Twitter is free – they can do what they want. But it’s pretty arrogant to show the fingers to users with no stated reason. When the police stops me on the road, they tell me why they give me a ticket! I may or may not agree, but there’s a “stated reason” for the ticket. That’s kinda part of the ABCs of living in an evolved society. But none of these “decency” rules seem to apply in the Facebook / Twitter new world order.
I guess they assume there’s an endless supply of users and they don’t need to care about them – and, heck, maybe they are right! I wish I could do that in my business!
Mark A. Andrews
March 5, 2010 @ 4:43 pm
Justin,
Can you send me a private email. I think I may have a non-violating way around all of this and get TweetMiner back in business.
Mark
tommytrc
March 5, 2010 @ 4:58 pm
Welcome back TweetMiner!
KaliMarcum
March 5, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
It appears that all tweets that were scheduled for last night and this morning have gone to twitter in the last 10 mintues. Does this mean we are back in business?
Justin
March 5, 2010 @ 6:04 pm
Yes. We are back in business :) Sorry for TM posting everything at once that’s a bug and once they catch up to the current time it will stop happening.
Ajay Goel
March 5, 2010 @ 6:42 pm
Congratulations!!! I am glad it all worked out.
Terri Zwierzynski
March 5, 2010 @ 8:37 pm
I think Tweetminer is getting a raw deal. Hootsuite and SocialOomph both provide scheduled tweets capability, but they are still running?? (maybe because they are free? which makes no sense but who knows!)
I haven’t used the RSS feed functionality yet, but the ability to change the link to be misleading…well anyone can do that with any tweet, manually, with Tweetmeme, etc. It’s not like you are providing an automated way for them to substitute links or anything! And if those misleaders did it enough, those accounts would get spam complaints and be shut down.
It seems Twitter doesn’t trust/believe in the free market concept much. If someone schedules tweets (and yes I’ll admit it’s part of my strategy) and their followers don’t like it (hasn’t happened to me yet…no complaints) then they’ll unfollow or block them. Isn’t that enough? It takes Twitter months to crack down on true spammers (automated new accounts, follow/instant unfollow, tweeting affiliate links to individuals just to get them seen) and yet in a matter of hours they can destroy a legitimate business.
Sorry Justin, that you (and your users) are getting a raw deal on this :(
I’m playing in Twitters sandpit, and they’re playing fair | TweetMiner Blog
March 5, 2010 @ 8:38 pm
[...] you didn’t know TweetMiner was suspended form the Twitter API yesterday. For more on that, see this thread here. This was as a result of TweetMiner breaking a few of their automation related rules determined by [...]
Pliggs
March 5, 2010 @ 10:14 pm
Do we get a discount for helping to get it back? :)
Congrats guys.
helen
March 6, 2010 @ 9:28 pm
i’m confused – we can schedule rss tweets but we can’t edit them is this the case? why wouldn’t we be allowed to have the original ‘summary’ tweet and use the remaining characters for our comment thereby adding a little value?
Justin
March 6, 2010 @ 10:20 pm
Hi helen. There’s no problem with editing the text of the tweet. The only issue with editing the link. So tweetminer allows you to fully edit the text :)
helen
March 6, 2010 @ 10:23 pm
i tested it out and yes al is ok – fantastic – you know thee will be a silver lining to this cloud – you probably got a lot of publicity and hopefully some new ‘paying’ customers – 94 is ridiculous come on everyone!! no more under the radar ok?
all the best
helen